The energy industry is anxiously awaiting the Biden administration’s decision on the controversial Willow oil development project on Alaska’s remote North Slope in the National Petroleum Reserve, as momentum against the project has picked up on TikTok and other social media. 

The decision could come at any time now. While the project seemingly has the support of Alaskans and their lawmakers, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who has fought the project along with environmentalists, has the final say on its approval, albeit with the input of President Joe Biden, whose administration supported a scaled-back version of the development. 

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) at CERAWeek and on the Senate floor urged the administration to approve the $6 billion project. Murkowski at the same conference said it was “so frustrating that we should be at a point where there’s even a debate about whether or not this should advance.” 

The decision is a major one for the Biden administration, which has teetered back and forth between criticizing the oil and gas industry for its record profits and encouraging it to increase production amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the latter of which runs counter to the administration’s emissions reduction goals. 

House Republicans this week are expected to formally introduce their Lower Energy Costs Act package, the party’s signature piece of legislation, that includes about 20 bills focusing on speeding up approvals of energy and mining projects, supporting more oil and gas drilling on federal lands and repealing provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act that provided funding for climate change and pollution, among other measures. 

Votes on the package are expected during the last week of March, and although the package is unlikely to make it out of the Senate, it does signal the energy priorities of the GOP, which has been gunning to make a splash in energy policy since Republicans took over the House.

• Budget: Biden’s 2024 budget proposal includes $24 billion in funding for climate resilience and conservation, with the funding aiming to help communities combat climate change disasters like floods, wildfires, storms, extreme heat and drought, although the provision and other climate-related funding will likely face strong opposition by House Republicans. 
• Water: The House voted 227-198 to overturn “waters of the United States” protections under the Clean Water Act finalized by the Biden administration in December, driven by House Republicans who have long said the regulations are an environmental overreach and a burden to business. 
• Bribery: Former Ohio House of Representatives Speaker Larry Householder and former Ohio Republican Party Chair Mathew Borges were convicted by a federal jury of participating in a $60 million bribery scheme stemming from a 2019 bill to bail out the state’s nuclear power plants, the Justice Department said.
• EPA: The Environmental Protection Agency proposed stricter regulations than Obama-era rules rolled back under the Trump administration that work to limit three types of wastewater pollution from coal-burning power plants, with a final rule expected in 2024.
• DOE: The Energy Department unveiled a $6 billion program that aims to decarbonize industrial emissions from the production of concrete, steel, chemicals and other materials, providing up to half of the cost for as many as 55 first-of-a-kind or early-stage emissions reduction projects by 2025.
• Janet Yellen: During the first meeting with the Climate-related Financial Risk Advisory Committee, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that a “delayed and disorderly transition to a net-zero economy” could shock the financial system, while the intensification of climate change can lead to asset value declines. 
• Loan programs: Jigar Shah, head of the Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office, said less than a third of companies applying for loans can easily navigate the complex credit review process, while the remaining applicants require assistance that has led to approval delays.
• Scope 3: Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler said the calculations for proposed Scope 3 emissions disclosures were not “as well developed” as those for Scope 1 and 2 emissions that are most reported by companies, suggesting that the final version of a climate disclosure draft rule introduced last year could be scaled back.
• Pollution: Around the world, only 0.001% of the population lives where air is considered acceptable by health standards, as 99.82% of the land area is exposed to levels of particulate matter that are above safety limits recommended by the World Health Organization, according to a study in Lancet Planetary Health.
• Solar: Solar panel imports in the United States have picked up after months of delays amid the implementation of a labor protection law that bans imports from China’s Xinjiang region, where established labor camps for ethnic Uyghur and other Muslim groups have been reported.

$300 million

The estimated amount that the first carbon market auction in Washington state generated after selling all of its almost 6.2 million allowances at a settlement price of $48.50 per ton of carbon, more than double the starting price of $22.20, according to the state Department of Ecology.

1) House GOP readies its first big agenda push: A massive energy bill

Sarah Ferris and Josh Siegel, Politico

2) SEC Chair Gensler says ‘Scope 3’ emissions disclosures aren’t ‘well developed,’ hinting they could be scaled back in climate rule

Chelsey Cox, CNBC

3) WA’s first greenhouse-gas-allowance auction raises estimated $300 million

Isabella Breda, The Seattle Times

4) U.S. home heating is fractured in surprising ways

John Muyskens et al., The Washington Post

5) US Launches $6 Billion Program to Slash Manufacturing Emissions

Naureen S. Malik, Bloomberg

6) Energy Industry Wrestles Over Going Green Too Fast

Collin Eaton, The Wall Street Journal

7) Biden climate law will stumble without permitting reform, industry warns

Reuters

8) Taking the Temperature: An Energy and Climate Tracker

Julia Martinez and Brian Yermal Jr., Morning Consult

9) Manchin indicates opposition to Biden lands nominee over internal memo

Rachel Frazin, The Hill

10) Is that electric truck greener than a gas-powered compact car?

Maria Virginia Olano and Eric Wesoff, Canary Media

• A clean-energy Texas suburb goes national (The Hill) 
• Bill Gates: Expecting people to stop eating meat or consumers to cut back won’t be enough to fix climate change (CNBC)
• Washed Away (Grist)
• Heat takes toll as Iditarod mushers trek across Alaska (The Associated Press) 
• Biden admin urges oil companies to speed up low-carbon efforts (Axios)
• You Should Build a Frog Pond (The Atlantic)
• Residents Fret Over Deaths in Southern California Mountains (The New York Times)